A horror masterpiece, simply put.

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2003)

Congratulations to Danny Boyle on creating a zombie movie that is touching, thought-provoking, funny, aesthetic, and yes, very scary.
It is ironic, however, that the major conflict in "28 Days Later...", a so-called "zombie movie", is not between humans and zombies, but rather between humans and humans.
And this is what makes the film so damn good--it embraces the primal paradox of humanity--we are the only species that both requires company of others to healthily survive AND actively kills each other so often. The film, if anything, is a meditation on that paradox. Characters need each other to perservere, yet destroy each other nonetheless. Danny Boyle, as he has with his previous works (Trainspotting, The Beach) is asking us, "How low can morality sink when survival is on the line?" He demonstrates this using the zombie-infection as a backdrop story, people killing people to keep themselves alive. Through the film characters grow and develop, in sometimes very violent means, and this development climaxes in a bloody apex that reminisces Straw Dogs.
But lets not forget, amidst all the violent philosophy, this IS a zombie movie, and it succeeds quite admirably in being a scary one at that, without ever seeming over-the-top or tongue-in-cheek. The zombies are pretty scary in themselves, but in these post-SARS times, the idea of such a readily-transmittable disease is much more unnerving ("Then there were reports of it in France and New York").
Kudos to those actors involved in the production as well--these people deserve to be seen in more films.
Overall, "28 Days Later..." is a chilling and intelligent horror movie, but moreso, it is a Biblical parable, it is an intense study of the evils and the glories of humanity when it is tested, it is the most impressive work of horror that this world NEEDS to see in these times. Yes its about zombies, but no, its about so much more.